The Threat Response Spy Files - Sources
Brisbane activist targetted by British spooks while doing East Timor solidarity work in England
Ciaron O'Reilly, October 22, 2003
The following is a recent initial statement by Brisbane Activist, Ciaron O'Reilly in relation to recent Sunday Times (England) relevations concerning infiltration of CAAT & Liverpool Catholic Worker.
Ciaron went to England
in '96 to organise around the "Seeds of Hope Ploughshares Trtial in Liverpool
(this trial is a chapter in John Pilger's "Hidden Agenda") The women
were in prison on remand after disarming (£2.5 million) a British
Aerospace (BAe) Hawk fighter to be exported to Indonesia to be used agains the
then occupied East Timorese.
Following the acquittal of the women by the Liverpool jury, Ciaron co-founded
the Liverpool Catholic Worker where he lived and resisted with a group of East
Timorese exiles form Los Palos. (This activist history is covered in Ciaron's
book "Remembering Forgetting - A Journey of Nonviolent Resistance to the
War on East Timor" OtfordPress, 2001.
Ciaron returned to OZ in '98 to carry out the Jabiluka Plooughshares disabling
of uranium mining equipment (see www.ploughsharesactions.organd also in 2000
to complete his prison sentence in the NT and participate in the S11blockade
of the WEF in Melbourne.
Ciaron presently awaits trial in Ireland charged with 2.5 million criminal damage
to a US war plane at Shannon airport en route to this year's GUlf War. (see
ploughsharesireland.org)
Dear Folks,
1) Initial/immediate reflection by Ciaron O'Reilly on recent Sunday Times revelations
and how they apply to the closing down of the LIverpool Catholic Worker
2) Original Sunday Times article that deals the general infiltration of the
anti-arms campaign &with agent "Fossey" before he deploys to Liverpool.
[not copied, see source; SpinWatch]
1)This story of infiltration
is still breaking in England. The full extent of it has yet to be revealed.
The significance of it to the Catholic Worker and Plowshares movement is that
the agent "Alan Fossey" was deployed to Liverpool to infiltrate the
Liverpool Catholic Worker (1996-99).
The Liverpool Catholic Worker came into being on the momentum of the local organising
around the trial of the "Seeds of Hope Ploughshares" trial and acquittal
in July '96. We decided to keep the momentum going by founding a live-in community
with East Timorese exiles and an extended live out community with local scousers.
We organised nonviolent
resistance at BAe Warton on a 3 monthly basis from Sept. '96. Before this event
a former policewoman was approached by local Special Branch and offered ?00
to attend one meeting a month, with bonuses on information on organisers. She
taped the second meeting with Special Branch and exposed their actions in "The
Guardian". (Sept '96)
Fossey moved his operations from Hull to Liverpool - as by the end of '96 the
Liverpool Catholic Worker became the most signicant base during this period
for nvda against BAe. There was alos a full scale infiltration and underming
of lobbying attempst fomr London based groups at this time (see ST article below).
Special Branch's agenda was to close us down and Fossey was to play a significant
role in this through the years of '97 and '98.
On my return to Australia in '98 to participate in the Jabiluka Ploughshares,
Fossey dovetailed into the agenda of a couple of resentful parishoners and some
recently arrived opportunists to wipe out what had become a significant organising
base against BAe and a rare experiment in radical Christian resistance praxis
in England. Much of the destabilisation had to do with discrediting my character
in my absence and marginalising the working class scousers who had been the
source of much of the hospitality and reisstance organinsing.
At the start of '99, a few weeks before the final eviction of the Liverpool
CW, Fossey met me at Heathrow Airport (On my return from Australia) delivering
a banning order form the priest/landlord.. I refused to open in it and he drove
me to Liverpool. In the CW house at the time were the recently bailed Bread
Not Bombs Ploughshares, a new crew of East Timorese exiles and a very different
vibe to when I had departed. NV resistance had pretty much dried up and the
lines were clearly drawn between the working class scousers who had been effectively
marginalised and the opportunists who had hoped to stage a coup and set up a
comfort zone. The priest, the parishoner and Fossey's agenda was to close the
place down.
They made their move a couple of weeks later as we accompanied the Swedish "Bread
Not Bombs" Ploughshares to Preston for a day of reflection before their
bail breaking at Barrow shipyards and return to jail awaiting trial. Fossey
drove some of us to Preston and then returned to Liverpool to hook up with the
crew facilitation the eviction of the Catholic Workers and East Timorese. On
the Sunday, Fossey returned to Preston and on to Barrow with the Bread Not Bombs
breaking their bail conditions and returning to jail. He maintained mobile phone
contact with those back in Liverpool facilitating the eviction.
When we returned to Liverpool that afternoon, the locks were changed, the CW
and East Timorese evicted, the bank account ransacked and the rest is (albeit
an unwritten) history.
I hope to write more about this experience after more information is available
and time for reflection. Try to draw some lessons from it.
That Fossey could over the course of two years infiltrate, operate betray, and
profit from an environment that contained East Timore (who on many occasions
fed, watered hime) who had been tortured, witnessed massacres and lost many
family shows the depth of evil we are encountering in this work.